* * * * *
* * * * *
O wild Providence! Unfathomable madness of Heaven! that ever I should
write what now I write! I will not write it....
* * * * *
The hissing of it! It is only a crazy dream! a tearing-out of the hair
by the roots to scatter upon the raving storms of Saturn! My hand will
not write it!
* * * * *
In God's name----! During four nights after the burning I slept in a
house--French as I saw by the books, &c., probably the Ambassador's, for
it has very large gardens and a beautiful view over the sea, situated on
the rapid east declivity of Pera; it is one of the few large houses
which, for my safety, I had left standing round the minaret whence I had
watched, this minaret being at the top of the old Mussulman quarter on
the heights of Taxim, between Pera proper and Foundoucli. At the bottom,
both at the quay of Foundoucli, and at that of Tophana, I had left under
shelter two caiques for double safety, one a Sultan's gilt craft, with
gold spur at the prow, and one a boat of those zaptias that used to
patrol the Golden Horn as water-police: by one or other of these I meant
to reach the _Speranza_, she being then safely anchored some distance up
the Bosphorus coast.
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